Hurricane or Spitfire Flypast

We’re thrilled to welcome The Battle of Britain Memorial Flight team back to Shobdon in 2019. We have been told to expect a flypast of a Hurricane and Spitfire on the Saturday afternoon. The Hurricane was the first British monoplane eight-gun fighter, the first RAF aircraft to exceed 300 mph in level flight and the first production fighter with a retractable main undercarriage. During the Battle of Britain, RAF Fighter Command fielded more Hurricanes than Spitfires, and Hurricanes achieved a similarly greater proportion of combat kills during the Battle.

Spitfires fought in every operational theatre of the War and remained in RAF front-line service up to 1954. At the end of its development the Spitfire carried an engine producing more than twice the power of the original, its maximum take-off weight and rate of climb had more than doubled, its firepower had increased by a factor of five and its maximum speed had been increased by a third; all this in essentially the same airframe.